Milan ~ Duomo di Milano and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (Day 4)

 

We started our first full day in Milan very slowly.  Les and I walked across the street for coffee and pastries.  We then walked to the nearby grocery store to pick up a few things before heading back to our apartment.  We tried out the espresso machine.  The portions are a lot smaller than we are use to!

We eventually headed out - our destination was the Piazza del Duomo or Cathedral Square.  We saw a lot of interesting buildings along the way...

From quite a distance, we started seeing the top of the cathedral:

 

We came at it from the back side:

Construction began in 1386.  By 1402, construction was about half complete when it came to standstill due to lack of funding until 1480.  Centuries went by with work being started and stopped.  Partial features were added.  It wasn't until 1965 that the last portal was inaugurated!

We made our way around the building to the front:

It is the largest church in the Italian Republic (technically, the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City, a sovereign state) and the third largest in the world.  It is 520 feet long by 302 feet wide and 354 feet high.  Nearly 80 architects and engineers were involved in various aspects of the design and building.

At the top is the Madonnina, a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Out front is also an equestrian statue of Vittorio Emanuele II, first King of a united Italy.

 

 

We had to put our brains to work to figure out the year:  MDCCCXCVI = M + DCCC + XC + VI = 1000 + 800 + 90 + 6 = 1896.

 

In the same piazza we entered Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  This is considered the first indoor shopping mall in the world!  It was designed in 1861 (the same year that the American Civil War started) and completed in 1877.  It is 643 feet long by 346 feet wide and the glass dome is 154 feet high.

 

The shops are the high end of the high end.  Most had guards at the doors and you could not just walk in and browse.  Needless to say, I kept my credit card in my purse!

We finally decided we needed some lunch.  The choices were many and we ended up at an Italian cafe (I think I had lasagna.)  We saw more than one fancy restaurant with a fast food joint above it.

We meandered our way out of the galleria and into shops along the way home.  We also stopped for gelato - I got mango and strawberry that really hit the spot on a hot day!

 

One thing we've learned about Europeans - they eat very late dinners.  Most restaurants close mid-afternoon and don't reopen until 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.  Since we'd eaten a large, late lunch, we opted for cereal in the apartment that night.  We had an adventure planned for the next day!